Monday, May 4

(this photo of Nasty Nobbs getting throw out of Fenway just never gets old)

The Rays continued their domination of the Red Sox this weekend, taking three of four at the Trop. At some point early last year, the "I got your timing down Vaughn" torch was passed from the Red Sox, to the Rays....I mean, even Tim Wakefield has been lit up by this young, fast, and powerful Rays lineup (anyone else a little mad that Haverhill's, Northeastern's, and the Wareham Gatemen's-own Carlos Pena has 11 taters?). Joe Murph has been a fan of this Rays team for seemingly longer than anyone (including the fake fans down in St. Pete), and the more I see them play the Red Sox, the more I understand why. Regardless of their current record, you've got to believe this team will be there in August in September. With that said, I figured it would be slightly uplifting to try to find some positive takeaways from a tough series in Florida:

-Brad Penny's quality start. In what seems like the first time since Nam', the Red Sox got a quality start out of one of their pitchers. Penny can partly blame Lugo for the loss (which he did), but we can all feel a little better that he was spotting a fastball with some velocity, and mixing in some great breaking stuff.

-Youk continues to pound the ball...Ortiz can say what he wants about not seeing good pitches, or needing another power bat behind him, but in reality he has the best hitter in the AL batting behind him right now.

-JD is healthy, and is starting to show some consistency at the plate.

-Nick Green continues his studly performance filling in at short....if only Tito could find the balls to sit Lugo for good.

-Dusty's average continues to climb, he hit .375 in the four game series with 5 runs scored...no thanks to Ortiz (can you tell he's still in my fantasy team's lineup and I'm bitter?).

Unfortunately, that's all I got right now for positives, feel free to chime in with more, had I gone with the negative list this post would be considerably longer.

The Sox head into the New Stadium tonight for what promises to be an exciting two game set against the Yanks. Early weather reports from ITM's own meteorologist on the ground in NYC (Joe Murph) show a slim chance they'll get the game in tonight, but I'm holding out hope. I'm excited to see a Lester/Hughes match up.

6 comments:

Weather update: the rain in NYC stopped around 11, but there's still a thick fog cover over the city and word is showers are supposed to settle back in for good around 3pm. I'll stick my hand out the window later this afternoon and come back with an update.

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